by Paul S. Kemp
Magadon looked up sharply, but his hard look quickly gave way to a smile.
“With us, then,” he said. “Come, Nestor. You need to bathe anyway.”
Cale couldn’t help but smile at that. Jak chuckled. Nestor looked angry.
Of Jak, Cale asked, “You scout a way past the bullywugs?”
Jak took another pull on his pipe then answered, “Easy. All we need to be is quiet and I’ll get us right to the shore.”
“Good,” Cale said. “Let’s move.”
Crouched at the edge of the tree line, Cale eyed the bullywugs. At least thirty strong, they stood in a ragged line about a spearcast from the Lightless Lake. The green skin of the froglike humanoids glistened in the light of their torches. Except for an occasional croak, they stood in near silence, watching the lake, watching the glow from the Fane. Their shaman, adorned about his neck with a brace of humanoid skulls and wearing a shirt of reptilian scales, swayed to music that only he could hear.
“A distraction?” Riven asked.
Cale shook his head and answered, “Not going to pull enough of them away. They’re worshiping. No, we go one at a time, at a belly crawl, as Jak suggested. We make for that.” He pointed to a large cypress at the edge of the lake, near the point from which the green glow lit the waters.
“A lot of space,” Riven observed.
Cale couldn’t deny it. If he’d still had his holy symbol, or if the halfling hadn’t exhausted all of his spells, they would have had more options. As it was …
“It’s all we’ve got,” he said. “The undergrowth will give us some cover. Me first. Then Jak, then you.” He looked to Magadon and Nestor. He felt obliged to give them one more chance at an out. “You can remain—”
Magadon grinned and shook his head. Cale was struck again with how incongruous that smile looked under his knucklebone eyes.
“I said we were in, Erevis,” the guide said, “so we’re in. Right, Nestor?”
The big human only grunted.
“Well enough,” Cale said. “You follow after Riven, then Nestor. Let’s do it.”
Wasting no time, Cale mentally prayed to the Lord of Shadows to shield him from the bullywug’s goggle eyes and crawled out of the tree line. He moved as rapidly as he could while staying flat to the ground. While the soft earth muffled the sound of his movements, his breath and heartbeat sounded as loud as a warhorn in his ears. With every croak from the bullywugs, he felt certain they had spotted him. But they did not. Covered in mud and sweat, he reached the cypress and sank into the shadows near its bole.
Unable to resist, he spared a glance into the lake. There, deep beneath the otherwise pitch waters, he saw the Fane of Shadows suspended in a hemispherical bubble. Viewed through the water, it looked like a picture drawn deliberately vague. He made out statues, arches, columns, but somehow it still looked insubstantial, surreal. He drew his sword and felt it being pulled toward the water, as though the lake was a lodestone. The shadows bleeding from the blade swirled off the metal and into the Lightless Lake. He knew it wanted to go there. Intuitively, he knew it would take him.
He turned away, determined to see to the safety of his comrades first.
The halfling came next. With skill, he crawled through the muddy undergrowth toward Cale. When he reached the cypress, Cale put a hand on his shoulder.
“Your sword,” Jak said right away. “It’s worse.”
“I know,” he said, and signaled Riven.
The assassin moved rapidly across the clearing, a shadow among shadows. When he reached the safety of the cypress, he looked into the lake and his good eye went wide.
“Dark,” he oathed. “That is deep.”
Cale signaled Magadon. With surprising grace, the guide made his way across the clearing to the cypress. He too looked upon the lake wide-eyed.
“I trust you have some ideas,” he said to Cale.
Cale did, but made no reply. Instead, he signaled Nestor.
The big human rolled from the tree line and began to make his way across the clearing. Slowly. He didn’t share Magadon’s grace or skill.
“How long have you worked with this oaf?” Riven hissed at Magadon.
The guide hesitated a moment before answering, “Not long.”
He left it at that.
Nestor stopped about halfway to the cypress.
“What is he doing?” Jak hissed.
Cale shook his head. He had no idea.
One of the spindly-legged bullywugs on the near side of their line shook its frog head, staggered, and croaked. Others croaked in answer. Cale could hear the question in their tone.
Cale held his breath. Nestor, the dolt, continued to move. Cale willed him to stay still. Eyes were drawn to motion, even in the dark. But the big fighter continued his crawl.
The bullywug that had staggered suddenly pointed in Nestor’s direction and croaked loudly. Thirty pairs of bulbous eyes focused on the human. The shaman ceased his ritual swaying, stood, and looked in Nestor’s direction. Spears were brandished. Loud croaks ran up and down the line. The bullywugs started to hop toward Nestor.
“Dark and empty,” Cale oathed.
With nothing for it, Nestor jumped to his feet and ran for the cypress. Thirty bullywugs led by their shaman hopped after. Spears whistled through the air.
Just as Cale and Riven prepared to rush to his rescue, two, then three of the spears thumped into the human. He staggered and fell, disappearing in the mud and undergrowth.
Cale held his ground, strained to see the fallen man but could not. It was as though the earth had swallowed him up.
“Nestor!” Magadon shouted.
The guide started back but Riven blocked him with his blade.
Ten or more of the bullywugs swarmed the area in which the human had fallen and their spears rose and fell. The rest, having heard Magadon’s cry, croaked loudly and hopped for the cypress. Their shaman began a rhythmic chanting that Cale knew could only be a spell.
Jak grabbed Cale by the arm and said, “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast!”
Cale knew what he had to do—follow the shadows, the same as he had done his whole life.
He followed the mist swirling off his blade, stepped to the water’s edge, and shoved his sword in, all the way to the hilt. The shadows leaking from the iron hissed when they hit the water, as though the blade was hot. For a moment, the lake churned and foam sprayed. A heartbeat later, a depression formed in the water around the sword. A hemisphere as large as a merchant’s wagon. A bubble of air. He withdrew his blade and the depression remained.
“Here!” he called. “Here!”
His comrades ran to him, with Magadon covering their retreat with bow fire. The air was filled with spears and croaks. Spears thumped into the cypress’s trunk and splashed into the lake.
“Get in,” Cale urged. “It will support us.”
He was guessing on that last but it proved to be true.
Riven, Jak, and Magadon jumped into the hemisphere, Magadon still firing. Cale followed, and it began to sink.
“Burn me,” Jak whispered, as the depression began to descend. It formed into a perfect sphere as the water closed above them.
By the time the bullywugs reached the shore, the lake had already swallowed Cale and his comrades. Looking up though the lens of the sphere, the bullywugs appeared blurry and indistinct. Their croaks, muffled. A few spear tips poked into the water, but none reached within the sphere.
Cale put a hand on Magadon’s shoulder to comfort him on the loss of his friend. Magadon looked him in the eyes and gave a nod. He took a deep breath.
“Here,” the woodsman said. “Do not resist.”
While Cale, Riven, and Jak shared a confused look, Magadon closed his eyes, touched two fingers to his temple, and visibly concentrated.
Cale felt a tickle at the base of his skull, followed by Magadon’s “voice” in his head: We now are all linked telepathically, at any distance.
“Nice,” Jak sai
d. I mean, nice, he said again, mentally, and grinned.
How long? Cale asked, more and more impressed with the mind mage.
More than an hour, Magadon responded.
Better than handcant, Cale said to Riven and Jak.
The bubble descended rapidly. Its sides felt leathery, though it was perfectly transparent. Below them the Fane glowed eerily, itself contained within a much larger hemisphere suspended in the depths. Try as he might, Cale could see no bottom to the lake. A field of statuary, not unlike the garden topiary in Stormweather, surrounded the temple building itself. Shadows darted amongst the statues.
See them? Cale said.
I see them, Riven said.
Jak nodded, as did Magadon.
Ready yourselves, Cale warned. I doubt they’re friendly.
CHAPTER 18
THE FANE OF SHADOWS
Their sphere stopped at a point adjacent to and just touching the larger sphere of air that contained the Fane. Like soap bubbles, the two instantly joined to form one larger bubble. The eerie green light, seemingly emanating from everything and nothing, provided a surreal illumination. Cale felt a strange sense of solitude, as though he was floating through the cosmos, as though he was suspended within the starsphere in his pack.
From the statue filled courtyard, the host of shadows streaked toward them with an unearthly moan. They appeared vaguely humanoid, with a deeper darkness where their eyes ought to have been. Menace went before them.
Cale and Riven stepped forward to meet them, blades bear. Jak followed, holy symbol brandished in his hands. Magadon, in stride beside the halfling, closed his eyes for a moment and a ball of white fire took shape in his hands.
Form up, Cale ordered, as the shadows swooped in. A tight circle.
Just as the comrades prepared to receive the onslaught, the shadows stopped.
They hovered in a semicircle three paces away. For a moment, nothing happened, then they began to moan. Those dire voices cast more chill than an Alturiak gale.
In answer, Cale’s sword vibrated and cast off more wisps of darkness.
I don’t know, Cale said to his comrades, to cut off the questions he felt forming in their minds.
“Trickster’s toes,” Jak said.
The moaning abruptly ceased, and Cale’s sword stopped vibrating. A silent communication seemed to pass between the shadows and they parted like a curtain to allow Cale and his comrades passage.
Jak’s voice sounded in Cale’s head, Whatever was in that starsphere went into your sword.
Cale nodded, and hoped again that whatever had transformed his sword had not transformed him, too. Cale looked at his blade. The dull steel still emitted streamers of shadow. He thought of the strange language that Riven had learned in his dreams, the speaking of which struck like a physical blow. He saw Mask’s hand in both the sword and the words.
Sephris’s voice sounded in his memory: Two and two are four.
Cale led his comrades through the shadows, which dispersed after they passed.
The statues that littered the courtyard were of extraordinary craftsmanship. Carved from black veined marble, basalt, obsidian, or ebony, all depicted what could only be a god or goddess of night. Many appeared as old and worn as the multiverse. Others likely had seen only a century or two. Intuitively, Cale understood the deities represented there to be gods and goddesses of darkness, night, or shadows on a hundred different worlds.
Who sculpted these? Jak asked, and even his mental voice held a touch of awe.
Cale wondered the same thing.
A metal plaque on the pedestal of each set forth the name of the represented deity. Most were in tongues or alphabets that even Cale had never before seen, but—
He stopped before a towering blacksteel sculpture of a long, dark-haired woman in a flowing cloak—the largest, most conspicuous sculpture in the courtyard. A cowl partially hid her features, but her mouth smiled knowingly. The plaque at the base was engraved in Thorass, an ancient form of common on Faerûn—Shar, it read. The Dark Maiden, Keeper of the Secret Weave.
Beside and slightly behind the statue of Shar, nearly hidden in its shadow, stood another statue, smaller and carved from black hematite: A one-legged human male in thieving leathers, with a cowled cloak pulled up to reveal only the lower half of his face. He seemed to be looking up at Shar from the shadows and sneering.
The expression reminded Cale of Riven.
In its hand, the statue held a long sword that looked strikingly similar to Cale’s own. Cale’s heart raced as he read the plaque: Mask, it read, and nothing more, as if any more than that one word was unnecessary.
“Dark and empty,” whispered Jak, repeatedly eyeing Riven, Cale, and the statue.
Who are you two? asked Magadon, trepidation evident in his mental voice.
For the only time in his life, Cale wasn’t sure of the answer to that question. He shared a look with Riven—the assassin’s face had gone pale—then averted his gaze. He looked to the statue’s missing leg, then to the stump of his wrist.
Who am I? he thought to the Lord of Shadows, echoing Magadon’s question. The statue only answered him with a sneer and silence.
He took a deep breath.
“Cyric is Vraggen’s god and he is not represented here,” Cale said. “The mage has been allowed passage only because he wields Shar’s Shadow Weave. But he still is not welcome.” He looked to Riven and said, “This is more our temple than his.”
Riven nodded and said, “Let’s end it.”
Together, the four comrades sprinted for the doors of the Fane.
Vraggen uttered a word of opening and the double doors to the sanctum flew open. In the Grand Hall behind them, they had passed many gifts, many weapons. None of them interested Vraggen. If he was entitled to take only one prize from there, as the caretaker had told him, he would take only what lay beyond these doors.
“Come,” he said to Azriim and Serrin. “Time is short.”
With that, he walked through the doors. They closed behind them.
A domed ceiling soared above the circular floor of the sanctum. The black, gem encrusted ceiling was a representation of Faerûn ’s moonless night sky, exactly as the sky appeared in the star globe, exactly as the sky appeared on the surface above. It seemed to shimmer, as though it was made of water rather than stone. Vraggen knew that the ceiling changed to reflect the sky of the world in which the Fane currently existed. A marvel, really.
A border of inlaid amethyst circumscribed the polished slate floor, giving the whole the look of a black sphere bordered in purple: Shar’s symbol. Though the Fane served the dark gods of many worlds, it was one goddess—Shar—who had first created it, who had first created the Shadow Weave; Shar, whose beautiful, dark house this was.
In the center of the sanctum sat a basalt, horseshoe-shaped altar inlaid with dusky opals and black pearls. A purple altar cloth, marked with the symbol of Shar, lay draped over it.
That altar was where Vraggen’s transformation would occur.
In the area of the ceiling directly above the altar, no stars glittered in the sky. Instead, a small circular area, devoid of light, yawned like the mouth of a beast. Shar’s “moon.” Vraggen found it hypnotic. It was a hole in reality, an eye into shadow. The transforming energy would emerge from that emptiness.
Candelabrum stood about the sanctum, though the wrist-thick tapers set therein did not burn. The diffuse, sourceless green light provided the only illumination.
Black velvet curtains lined the entirety of the walls except for the wall directly behind the altar. There, a lifelike depiction of a sapling tree decorated the wall. With smooth black bark, a few gray leaves, and three oval fruit of glistening silver, it was unlike any tree Vraggen had ever before seen. Azriim and Serrin seemed taken with the representation. They stared at it, unblinking.
Vraggen put a hand on each of their shoulders and said, “The altar.”
He moved into the room. They followed.
Unlike the rest of the floor of the sanctum, a black crystalline substance covered the floor within the horseshoe of the altar’s pulpit. A charge raced through Vraggen as he stepped upon it. Azriim stood near him. Serrin stood before the mosaic of the tree, lightly tracing the wall with his fingertips. In a generous mood, Vraggen allowed the easterner his fascination. He looked back to Azriim.
“Let us begin,” he said, and began the ritual that would grant him the greatest of gifts offered by the Shadow Weave.
Cale pulled open the doors to the Fane. A long, wide hallway beckoned. Shadows played in the green light along its entire length. Paintings and mosaics covered the walls, each shifting and melding when Cale tried to focus on them. He thought them a representation of chaos, or reified deception.
Alcoves lined the hall at intervals. In each stood a small table or pedestal, and upon each of those sat an item, displayed as though the Fane were a merchant’s shop: here a staff of power, there a sword; here a cloak, there a ring. Cale could feel the magic in the room—shadow magic. The hall terminated in a pair of black double doors.
“Don’t touch anything,” Cale said, and he stepped into the Fane.
The moment he broached the archway, a husky female voice spoke aloud, in perfect Chondathan, “Take one thing of what you would, servant of the secret, leave what you can, and extend the darkness thereby.”
Cale turned to his comrades with raised eyebrows.
“Strange that she would speak in the tongue of Luiren,” Jak said.
“Amnian, you mean,” said Riven.
Cale realized then that the voice was nothing more than a phantasm. The magic must have let each listener hear it in a familiar tongue.
Ignore it, Cale sent. Keep moving.
When they had all stepped into the foyer, the doors of the Fane slowly closed behind them. They shared a look, readied their weapons, and advanced down the hallway. Cale steadfastly kept his eyes from the tempting items in the alcoves.
Before they’d taken ten strides, the shadows before them swirled threateningly. Cale leaped backward, dragging Jak with him. White fire took shape in Magadon’s hands. Riven circled out wide.